To say Dominic Savio was precocious would be an understatement. Once, when he just four or five, his mother found him in prayer, hands clasped in supplication with words he already knew by heart. At the age of twelve he joined the Silesian Order school run by St. John Bosco, impressing Bosco enough to convince him to take Savio with him to Turin. So intense was Savio’s commitment to a holy life, that Bosco began recording the deeds of the extraordinary young man as an example for future generations. Those writings would be the spur for his canonization.

On this day, June 12, in 1954, Savio was declared a saint by Pope Pious XII. Although he died at 14, well before the minimum age of sainthood, Pope Pious X began the beatification steps anyway.

Bosco record the young man had intense, transcendental experiences during prayer. “It is silly of me; I get a distraction and lose the thread of my prayers and then I see such wonderful things that the hours pass by like minutes,” Savio would say. One of those visions led Savio, along with Bosco, to an unknown part of the city and the door of a dying man who wished to make his last confession. Savio would make appearances in visions to Bosco and his family even after his death.